If you are an electrical engineer, or anyone who designs electro-mechanical products then this is the SOLIDWORKS event for you. We will spend 40 minutes (or less) discussing “What’s New” in SOLIDWORKS for electrical engineers. At SOLIDWORKS, we are very excited about this launch, as it will be focusing on electro-mechanical design. So many SOLIDWORKS users are adding smart devices into their product lines, or building new smart products all together, as customers are demanding smart products

SOLIDWORKS is a proud sponsor of the Magic Wheelchair organization, which builds epic costumes for kiddos in wheelchairs at no cost to families. SOLIDWORKS providing SOLIDWORKS software to volunteer design teams. The SOLIDWORKS R&D team has been matched up with Jonah, a wheelchair-bound eleven-year-old, and team is excited about the challenge of gifting him with the most incredible costume they can bring to life. You can catch up on the work SOLIDWORKS is doing with this amazing organization by

When the SOLIDWORKS team was introduced to the Magic Wheelchair organization at Maker Faire, we found our new design-make project! Magic Wheelchair builds epic costumes for kiddos in wheelchairs at no cost to families. SOLIDWORKS is a proud sponsor of the Magic Wheelchair organization, providing SOLIDWORKS software to volunteer design teams. The SOLIDWORKS R&D team has been matched up with Jonah, a wheelchair-bound eleven-year-old, and team is excited about the challenge of gifting him with the

SOLIDWORKS xDesign Public Lighthouse Program was in full swing last few weeks through xDesign Your Way to Milan Challenge! Among the frenzied and fun-filled moments, five xDesign users made their way to participate in SOLIDWORKS xDesign hackathon. Their entries reflected their personal story and passion in solving a problem through a design that touches on various aspect of our life. We’ll share their stories on the blog in the coming weeks.

We had the opportunity to speak with Ed Gebo after this year’s SOLIDWORKS World to discuss his role in the development of SOLIDWORKS xDesign. One Door Closes, Another Opens There is much to be said for the phrase “One door closes and another opens.” In December of 2017, I was hired as a consultant by SOLIDWORKS to help with its new product called SOLIDWORKS xDesign. When I received that initial email a few months prior, the kid who graduated many years ago from Worcester Vocational Technical

Every designer knows that careful attention to detail on their designs is important to ensure the manufacturing team can build the best product possible. However, in Hollywood, a lot can be done with special effects and CGI alone so what if there is no a physical manufacturing? What if they are just designing for the digital world? Should designers still be focused on details too?

I love visuals in place of linear data, vis-à-vis spreadsheets. Even though Excel is actually a piece of software Microsoft nailed, I still find myself wanting to see my data in something more than rows and columns, especially at 4 o’clock in the afternoon when it’s easy to get cross-eyed. I’ve come across countless organizations where Excel is used rampantly and as the habitual default – even when there are professional tools available to them. With all of the PDM conversations I’ve had, I’ve

The fourth person we would like to profile from the SOLIDWORKS World xDesign challenge is Shawn Lesley. He shared the following with us regarding the challenge: When I first started trying to figure out what I would design for the SOLIDWORKS xDesign Challenge, I really couldn’t think of anything. The inspiration came to me as I was using a forge doing one of my hobbies, blacksmithing. Blacksmithing is something that happens all over the world, believe it or not.

There’s a common thread among many of the big tech trends today. Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI) are all powered by one thing: data. Better access and analysis of data enables people and organizations to be nimble and make better decisions faster. It’s pretty simple.

Students from Singapore Polytechnic finished in ninth place in the 2017 World Solar Challenge in a solar-powered car designed and built using SOLIDWORKS. Their car, not only had to be designed in accordance with strict competition design criteria but also needed to have the stamina to traverse 3000km across the unforgiving Australian outback, from Darwin to Adelaide, where temperatures fluctuated from single digits to 40°C within a single day. A solar-powered car that does not compromise

SOLIDWORKS is now directly connected to the 3DEXPERIENCE Marketplace. The Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE® Marketplace empowers you to collaborate with qualified industrial service providers across a range of services throughout your product innovation process. The first two services are: Make, for on-demand manufacturing, and Part Supply, for intelligent part sourcing. Each service adheres to industry standards and uses 3D as the universal language to improve collaboration and make sure there

It’s been awhile since the last blog and much has been accomplished on the Torpedo. Here’s an update on those accomplishments. If you want to start reading from the beginning, or any of the others you can navigate here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 During a recent visit to Rob Ida’s shop, he told me the Torpedo project is on the downhill side of the mountain of work he had to do, and the project will pick up speed because Rob’s employees can start work on others

Does an engineer share workloads or work concurrently in a team? My observation is that most engineers are PART of teams, but don’t necessarily WORK in teams. By nature, an engineer is trained to be a highly effective innovator who first works with tools on his own, challenging complex issues and then when done, gets feedback from team members which he/she then inserts into his/her concepts or designs. The process is still very sequential at many companies out there and most of the engineers I

To operate efficiently, manufacturers must not only effectively manage assets (people, IP, technical systems, production equipment, and distribution networks) but also perhaps their most valuable asset: the enormous amount of data housed within their departments, databases and systems. Although most companies recognize the benefits of managing, mining, and using data to improve efficiency and achieve a competitive edge, these efforts have largely focused on managing and leveraging data at the

Different types of engineers typically work differently. Though electrical engineers work in a totally different way than mechanical engineers, today’s complex design projects require tighter integration between the two disciplines. As design is changing at a rapid pace, and products need to be developed quicker, disparate engineering teams MUST work closer together. One of the largest challenges our customers face is that the ways in which these teams save their data is very different.

What if I told you by clicking a button in SOLIDWORKS Visualize, you could instantly render 10x faster? Would your world change? What you would do with all that extra time given back to your life? Would you actually believe me?

Day three of General Sessions at SOLIDWORKS World started off with Mike Puckett, Senior Manager of the Worldwide Certification Program, who gave the audience a glimpse of the workforce of the future. According to Mike the SOLIDWORKS certification program, which celebrates its 20th anniversary, initially took 16 years to reach 100,000 certified users, but over the last two years it’s doubled in size with 200,000 new users now certified. In 2017 alone, the program added over 52,000 new certified

What if you could shorten the path from idea to finished product and experience increased productivity while reducing errors? What if a complete, turnkey business environment involving minimal investment and administration overhead was at your fingertips? SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE PLM Services provide design, engineering and business process services on the cloud. Due to the flexibility of the product and the breadth of the portfolio, corporations of any size and business requirements can be

After the General Session concluded on Monday, the Additive Manufacturing Symposium kicked off. The 3D printing initiatives that have been worked on here at SOLIDWORKS were unveiled along with a demos of some brand new products from partners such as 3D Systems’ 3DXpert for SOLIDWORKS and Desktop Metal’s Live Parts. The symposium also featured two special guest speakers. One was Terry Wohlers, is principal consultant and president of Wohlers Associates, Inc., an independent consulting firm he

When innovations like augmented and virtual reality emerge, it’s only natural that we immediately start dreaming of the potential they can bring. We’ve listened to your dreams and are proud to introduce new functionality that will allow you take advantage of these technologies and provide cutting-edge tools to inspire innovation and make great design happen! — Welcome to SOLIDWORKS Xtended Reality – a method to transform your CAD data and bring it to life, virtually – opening the future of

There has been a lot of conversation lately about a design-to-manufacture workflow as it relates to improving communication and efficiency within a company. What does design to manufacture mean? The short answer is that there are lots of different thoughts on this process. The one that is correct is the one that works best for your company and procedures.

SOLIDWORKS World is an amazing community of engineers, makers and scientists who are a force for change in the world. This community keeps pushing the boundaries, with no fear of complexity. It is an amazing time to be in Product Design and Engineering – it is possible to give Life to the products we design today. With sensors that can see (vision) and sense the environment (temperature, distance etc.), to adding brains with PCB and software;

SOLIDWORKS World is fast approaching and this time it is going to be bigger than ever. If you are there on the Monday, February 5th, and you are interested in Additive Manufacturing (AM), make sure you check out the Additive Manufacturing Symposium. Building on the success of the Design for Additive Manufacturing learning path introduced at SOLIDWORKS World 2017, this year’s breakout sessions dedicated to AM are all in the same room and on the same day. This makes it even easier to get a